Big Easy,Key West & Bahamas...Learn Me

I mentioned that me and the Missus are going on a 1 week cruise from New Orleans to Key West and the Bahamas followed by 5 days back in New Orleans. It's our 20th anniversary so we're going to get away. Its less than a month away so we're looking for ideas for what to do. Ok all you world travellers give us some tips on places and things not to miss. We're looking forward to the food and nightlife of the Big Easy as well as the other cruise stops.

And as mentioned in the other thread Photo Ops are appreciated but I'm not going to spend the whole time taking pictures. Looks like I'll take the DSLR along but I've also picked up a Canon G11 that I'll use as our P&S for things like night time in New Orleans when I don't want to worry about 'The Beast'.

If I were to beat you senseless with a tire iron, what color would you bleed?..The Missus

In NOLA, assuming you are near the quarter, the first thing I always do is go to Messinas in the food court of the mall (that is right next to the cruise port) and get a dressed crawfish po' boy and a Turbo Dog. For dinner proper I recommend Brousard's, It's kinda old-school creole, not a BIG name like Commander's palace an the like, but solid food and a pretty good value. Also get a muffaleta from Central Grocery at some point. Breakfast special at Mothers on Poydras, IIRC it's only available on weekdays, actuallty any food from Mothers rocks. If you are more mobile, the Asian Cajun is pretty cool, but I'm not sure of their post-Katrina location.
Window shopping on Royal St. is pretty cool too. Bourbon st. is a frat-boy disneyland. Get a picture of the bronze Ignatius Reiley statue on Canal.
You could do a cocktail tour. But I'd skip that and go to the Sazerac lounge and get a properly made namesake.
...I bet i know where you got them shoes...

Key West, Duval St. is much like Bourbon st, but more crowded and commercial with more Jimmy Buffet. The Green Parrot is a great bar and worth the hike. There's a little shop on (I believe) Front St. that has real (and really cool) Hawaiian shirts.
You can carry back much more than 2 liters of alcohol with no hassle. We brought back 7 bottles of rum from our last cruise and 5 bottles of tequila from the trip we just got back from to MX. Just sayin'. Rum's the ticket in the Caribbean. PM for more.

Good ideas. That's the stuff we are lookin' for. There are the normal 'swim with the dolphins' stuff in the Bahamas but we're just considering walking around on the beach, shopping and taking in the locals without doing any of the normal excursion stuff. We'll probably do the Pub Crawl excursion in Key West. For 35 bucks you get a tour of Key West, 5 drinks and a t-shirt. It gets great reviews. Our main goal in Key West is the Butterfly Garden. One of the last photos of my mother was taken there. We need to find the bench where she sat.

If I were to beat you senseless with a tire iron, what color would you bleed?..The Missus

Key West is small enough that you really don't need to pay anyone to take a fun tour. They have a sunset festival with street vendors and cool stuff like that. If you're gay they have a FAAAAABULOUS night life, but even if you're not you will have fun and see some bizarre stuff. I was sailing in to Key West for a day or two and a pirate style tour boat full of uh... lady boys waved at me. I was 14 at the time and thought it was the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen. I paid a local hobo a few bucks to buy me a bottle of cheap vodky and got sloshed. You ever try to walk on the deck of a sail boat when you're drunk? Not easy. Anyway, tons of good seafood in Key West and if you want you can visit Ernest Hemingways house and see his polydactylic cats. You could visit Margaritaville or Crabby Dicks or a slew of different bars. You'll enjoy it. You can't do Key West wrong if you've got an open mind and a few bucks.

Key West is small enough that you really don't need to pay anyone to take a fun tour. They have a sunset festival with street vendors and cool stuff like that. If you're gay they have a FAAAAABULOUS night life, but even if you're not you will have fun and see some bizarre stuff. I was sailing in to Key West for a day or two and a pirate style tour boat full of uh... lady boys waved at me. I was 14 at the time and thought it was the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen. I paid a local hobo a few bucks to buy me a bottle of cheap vodky and got sloshed. You ever try to walk on the deck of a sail boat when you're drunk? Not easy. Anyway, tons of good seafood in Key West and if you want you can visit Ernest Hemingways house and see his polydactylic cats. You could visit Margaritaville or Crabby Dicks or a slew of different bars. You'll enjoy it. You can't do Key West wrong if you've got an open mind and a few bucks.

Sounds like an easy plan. We'll only be there during the day...8-5ish..

If I were to beat you senseless with a tire iron, what color would you bleed?..The Missus

You can still have fun, you'll just miss the weird night life. The town is all tourism especially during the day, but after dark things can get weird fast. Make sure to check out some of the smaller bars if you like to imbibe.

If Nassau, get a taxi and head for the food huts under the bridge from Nassau to Paradise Island where the Atlantis is. Delicious food and relatively inexpensive. The Atlantis itself is pretty much as advertised and everything is expensive.

The shopping in Nassau is nothing to write home about (IMO). Chain stores, high prices, and when the cruise ships roll in, jam-packed.

"Pardon me, but could you help out a fellow American who's down on his luck?"

My haul of rum from the last caribbean trip. We had a rum tasting for mardi gras. It was well worth the trouble of packing the rum.

‎"Doctors is all swabs," he said; "and that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes – what do the doctor know of lands like that? – and I lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me; and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab."

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Mulates in NO....

Great food.....awesome fried alligator.

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." John Stuart Mill, 1866